You probably know that your employer has a responsibility to
keep you safe at work, but do you know your responsibilities at work?
As an employee or contractor, you have specific work health
and safety (WHS) duties.
Most areas will have a version of an Occupational Health and
Safety Act. In general, these will suggest that you must:
- take reasonable care for your own
health and safety - take reasonable care for the
health and safety of others who may be affected by their acts or omissions - cooperate with anything the
employer does to comply with OHS requirements - not ‘intentionally or recklessly
interfere with or misuse’ anything provided at the workplace for OHS.
It is important to note that health and safety has updated
its definition in many places to include psychological health and safety and
psychosocial hazards, that is, your mental and emotional health.
This means that while your employer is responsible for not
putting you at risk of psychosocial hazards, you are also responsible for
managing your own risk, and letting people know when your health and safety is
at risk.
A psychosocial hazard is anything that could cause
psychological harm. Common psychosocial hazards at work include:
- job demands
- low job control
- poor support
- lack of role clarity
- poor organisation change
management - inadequate reward and recognition
- traumatic events or material
- remote or isolated work
- poor physical environment
- violence and aggression
- bullying
- harassment, including sexual and
gender-based harassment, and - conflict or poor workplace
relationships and interactions.
Remember, you are not acting alone. Your employer is
responsible for providing and maintaining a working environment that is safe
and without risk to health, but you still have a legal responsibility to take
care of yourself and not do anything that would affect the health and safety of
others at work.
This means that you do have the right to refuse to do unsafe
work. If asked to do something that you think may be unsafe, either physically
or mentally, stop and talk to your supervisor or HR.
Reckless endangerment
Everyone also has a responsibility around reckless
endangerment. In general, a person who, without lawful excuse recklessly
engages in conduct that places or may place another person who is at a
workplace in danger of serious injury is guilty of reckless endangerment. In
some areas, reckless endangerment is an indicatable offence, which can incur a
fine or even imprisonment.
Reckless endangerment applies to everyone – an employer, a
worker, a designer, manufacturer, supplier or installer, even a member of the
public.
